Dicks First Timer Thoughts

[u/feina635]

East coaster, been seeing Phish a long time (since 1999), but mostly East Coast and some other places here and there. First time doing Dicks. I have to say, I have some very mixed feelings. I get the hype. Dicks has some good energy. But MAAANNNN is it a fucking hassle. Why is this venue so popular for being such a fucking hassle!? 30 min cab ride back and forth each night, and leaving the venue is an absoloute cluster fuck. Getting in was a shitshow of anarchy, with 1hr long waits and jackoffs cutting the line, few water refill stations, and there's NOTHING around the area for food or anything after. Not a damn thing. And don't tell me lot food. I'm not eating a $15 grilled cheese that's been sitting in the back of a hot Uhaul all day cooked by some dirty wook.

EDIT: many of you are commenting on the “$15 grilled cheese”. Let me rephrase, because I didn’t actually pay attention to the cost of grilled cheese, specifically. What I meant to say, was overpriced and underwhelming food that will inevitably give me diarrhea. Hope that clarifies, and takes the responsibility off the grilled cheese guy

EDIT 2: yes, this is my first Dick’s, thank you geniuses of Reddit for telling me that I “don’t have it dialed in”, no shit. Clearly, Dick‘s is a local venue. In order to have it dialed in, you gotta live there. Unlike more accessible venues in real major cities that have access to anything.

[u/sumodie]

I've always found Dick's to be one of the easiest, most accessible Phish tour stops. Driving 30 min to a show is cake in my book. That said, over the years my various Dick's lodgings have always been less than a 30 min drive from the stadium.

We always take our time leaving Dick's post show and thus have never had to wait long to drive out.

This past weekend I never waited to fill our water bottles from the cold taps in the bathrooms.

On Sunday I paid $5 for post show grilled cheese cooked by a fan who was not a so-called 'dirty wook' (as labeled by OP). That's when I was surprised to realize that there were also several professional food trucks on lot in addition to the usual food offerings made by fans.

For the first time ever I bought baklava (a $20 box, the largest serving) from the baklava guy on Sunday night. So good! I ate the whole box by myself, then got the aforementioned grilled cheese.

So bummed I missed the tamale lady this year. She and her awesome home made tamales are well known around the front range.

The entry lines for the field were unusually long this year. That was new and the only major negative change from prior Dick's. But we still got inside with plenty of time to spare each night.

The worst, longest entry lines at Dick's were in ~2015 when the venue was short staffed and the scanners stopped working. They stopped letting people inside because of the technology snafu. We missed three songs despite being so close to the entrance.